


Essence of Time

by Calacious



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluffy Ending, M/M, Nanowrimo2017, Nightmare, Prompt Fic, images of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 07:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12721896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: Danny hears the echo of a gunshot over the phone, and knows he's failed. He didn't make it in time.





	Essence of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the quote, "And indeed there will be time" from T.S. Eliot's, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" which is a poem that I love.
> 
> This is imperfect. It is just a scene involving a nightmare. No one dies.

Time is running out. It's not an observation, it's a fact. A fact that Danny cannot ignore if he wants to save Chin, whose life is dangling from a figurative thread. A figurative thread that Danny holds in his rather shaky hands.

He'd gotten the call an hour and a half ago. The man had said that if Danny wanted to see Chin alive again, then Danny would have to meet him at Ala Wai River, near the Convention Center, within two hours.

Danny was still about thirty minutes from town, and had no idea where to begin looking along the river for Chin and the man who was holding him hostage.

He'd sent Danny a picture of a battered and bruised Chin to up the ante, and give Danny a little more motivation to get a move on. Not that he'd needed the extra motivation. Not when it concerned the man that he loved more than he'd ever really loved anyone other than his own children.

Chin and he had started dating about a year ago, and had just recently announced their engagement to the team, hoping that the others would accept their relationship. The team had accepted their relationship, but Chin had resigned from Five-0 and taken a job as a police consultant because the governor had threatened to fire the both of them if one of them didn’t quit.

Fraternization was not acceptable, and having a married couple on the team was determined to be too high risk. The governor, and the other members of the team, felt the same way, and worried that if one of their lives was in danger, that the other would not do his job as well as he needed to.

It was a valid concern. Danny couldn't think about anything else with Chin's life in danger.

As a police consultant, Chin was often called on by Five-0 to help on certain cases, and paid well for his expertise. He was also often hired by the Honolulu police, and police from other districts throughout the state (including the outer islands). Chin did not have many days off, and was actually making _more_ money than he had as a member of Five-0. Danny'd been tempted to join him as a consultant, but Chin had talked him out of it. _“Someone needs to keep an eye on McGarrett,”_ he’d said.

Palms sweaty, heart pounding like mad in his chest, Danny pulled into a parking spot, tires screeching, and almost forgot to put his car in park before leaping from the vehicle, and running toward the bridge that the kidnapper had indicated he’d find Chin at. It was only a few minutes walk from the Convention Center parking, but Danny didn't have a few minutes to spare.

Time was running out, and it felt like he was running backwards, not forwards. He was gaining no forward momentum whatsoever, and it felt like he was trying to run in quicksand.

His phone rang and Danny plucked it out of his pocket as he ran, jamming his thumb on the green call button. Out of breath, he could only listen as a single gunshot echoed through the connection, and reverberated between the buildings that surrounded the Ala Wai River.

Danny's knees gave out, and he fell, unable to breathe or think as the sound of the echoing gunshot reechoed through him and continued to ring in his head. His heart felt like it was going to beat its way out of his chest, and his vision tunneled until all he could see was black.

“No,” he whispered hoarsely. “No, no, no, no, no…”

His legs were useless. He was stuck in the quicksand of time that would not move forward. Chin dead. Danny’s heart a useless mass of muscle that felt nothing but pain.

“Danny?” Chin’s voice broke through Danny’s litany, his hand warm and heavy on Danny’s shoulder as he shook him. “Danny, it’s okay. It’s just a nightmare. You can wake up now.”

Chin’s words came to him as though through several feet of water, warbled and unclear, and Danny tried desperately to swim to the surface as an image of Chin, dead, bullet hole through his head, blood pouring into the cement along the Ala Wai Bridge, plagued him.

Danny felt Chin shift beside him as he tried to shake off the nightmare, lips on his, pulling him to the surface, helping him to breathe, to feel, to know that Chin hadn’t been killed that day. He’d gotten there in time, and so had the rest of his team. They’d rallied together to save the man that Danny loved. Chin had survived. His kidnapper had not. Danny felt no remorse.

“You with me now?” Chin asked once Danny’s eyes had opened.

Chin was lying on top of him, a welcome, comforting weight, eyes searching Danny’s for recognition and understanding.

Nodding, Danny simply breathed, and then kissed his lover, relishing the feel of the man’s lips against his own, and the fact that, in little under a week, they’d be married and heading off to the Caribbean for their two week long honeymoon.


End file.
